Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 072

Transcript

In the middle fifties the French in Akaroa had glorious quarrel amongst themselves
about donkeys. Emile Malmanche offered some for sale. Wackerle, still alive, shortly
insisted that they were not his, but the property in common of the French settlers.
Commodore Berard of the Comte Ville de Paris had, he said, left the originals
to increase, until each settler had one.

Many persons run away with the idea that Sir George Grey presented the Clock Tower to
Canterbury. Sir G. Grey had nothing more to do with it than this. The Clock Tower was
ordered in the fifties by the Provincial Government, and paid for by the Province. Owing
to some miscalculation as to the weight it was not erected on the Provcl.Buildings Tower,
being too heavy. It was then stored in the Municipal Yard. On the abolition of the
Provinces all Provincial property became Colonial as did the clock. But the Govt of which
Sir G. Grey was the head, did - what else could they do in decency?  allowed [sic]
it to become the property of the Municipality, and there it has remained ever since. The
idea that Sir George gave it to Canterbury is a myth.